Steadily improving, but still far from perfect – that is how the EU Commission marks the member states’ annual reports on their efforts to balance fleet capacity and available fishing opportunities.
The first reports submitted covered the year 2003, and in its recently published annual compilation, of reports covering 2007, the Commission concluded that the majority of member states still did not file their descriptions in accordance with the 2002 and 2003 regulations, but rather emphasised the national fleet management systems and trends in fleet capacity in relation to the entry/exit schemes.
“Most of the reports are compiled in such a way that a clear link between effort management measures and fleet capacity adjustment cannot be established, nor do they critically analyse the trends in real effort deployed”, the Commission complained, adding that “in some cases, the main driver of fleet capacity reduction appears to be a combination of poor economic performance of the fleet and the availability of Community or national funds”.
The fishing capacity of the EU fleet continued its slow but steady decline during 2007, at an annual rate of between 2 and 3 per cent. The variations are considerable between different member states, however, which “puts a question mark over the effectiveness” of measures applied under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the Commission said.
Since large parts of the fleet are still under-utilised, while 30 per cent of the stocks in EU waters continue to be fished outside safe biological limits, according to scientists, and 80 per cent are fished at levels above Maximum Sustainable Yield, “the capacity reductions achieved appear to be insufficient”, the Commission conclusions noted dryly, adding that technological progress risk to neutralise the effect of those already insufficient reductions.